Unilever misses mark on I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter mobile ad campaign

By Rimma Kats

May 31, 2011

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter banner ad

Unilever’s I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter mobile banner ad illustrates how important it is to have a mobile-optimized landing page. The company’s mobile landing page is not mobile-optimized, making its execution fall short.

The banner ad, which ran in WhatToExpect.com’s iPhone application, promoted the company’s butter products. Instead of taking consumers to a mobile-optimized site, the banner ad takes them to the company’s Web site, which changes the overall purpose of the ad.

“It is critical that mobile banner ads are designed for the mobile user,” said Marci Troutman, CEO of Siteminis, Atlanta. “Without the mobile landing page, there are no effective calls-to-action on potential conversion.

“It depends on the client situation, but normally the click-through goes to a standard PC URL page and the mobile customer breakage is significant and return on investment effectiveness is reduced,” she said.

Ms. Troutman does not work for Unilever, nor did she participate in its mobile banner ad campaign. She commented as an expert on mobile-optimized landing pages.

Unilever did not respond to press inquiries by press deadline.

Mobile ad
The I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter mobile ad reads, “Fresh Butter Taste, See Special Offers.”

When consumers click on the banner ad, they are redirected to the company’s Web site where they can see the special offers.

However, instead of seeing a page that is fully optimized for any particular device, consumers can barely read the text on the screen.

To read the text, users must zoom in.

The site invites consumers to play the company’s game, enter to win prizes and browse recipes. However, those too are not optimized for mobile.

The I Can't Believe It's Not Butter mobile banner ad

The landing page is not optimized for mobile devices

Importance of optimization
It is a necessity that marketers running mobile banner ads have an optimized-site.

Mobile banner ads help build relationships between the brand and the customer.

If a customer clicks on the ad and has to zoom in and make an effort to read what it says on that particular page, then that ruins the overall consumer experience.

Companies need to be consistent with their mobile strategy and that includes testing to see if there is a mobile-optimized page that follows a banner ad.

“It is extremely important for brands to consider what Web presence they send end users to on their mobile device,” said Marlon Rodrigues, director of alliances at Polar Mobile, Toronto.

“The minority of brands actually produce a usable, let alone great, experience,” he said. “The simple truth is that if brands don’t give their mobile users a simple way to engage, the whole value of driving the user to the page is lost, likely causing their campaign to under-perform. 

“In this case, the concept and the creative are on-point, but the execution falls short.”

Comments on "Unilever misses mark on I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter mobile ad campaign"

1. Nico Koepke says:

   June 3, 2011 at 5:31am

   Classic, and no excuse for big brand to miss this one. It would work however if the MAIN website / landing page had a REDIRECT to mobile-device optimised version. Once that is in place, a brand can safely run ads across both desktops and mobile networks without having to worry about which ad leads where, as that decision is made at device-stage. Also a big issue in rich Email campaigns, which now are increasingly opened on smartphones - and the click-throughs go wasted as they lead to WEBSITES.